barbed wire
by A Wolf in Cairo
Summary: Not recommended if you have a weak stomach for: (a) Takato/Ruki, (b) senseless fluff, or (c) mentioning of sharp objects. [Complete]


::barbed wire::  
  
*  
  
Author's Notes: I -am- a Takato/Ruki fan (who's so desperate to find sites for them that she's actually got Japanese sites that she can't even -read- for them in her favorites) and thusly this is a Rukato fanfic. Note that Ruki's part of the combo-name-thingie is first. I read somewhere that is supposed to signify who is the dominant member of the pairing. Ruki is most definitely the dominant one in this coupling. I do utilize Japanese names, but I'm a dubbie, so I'm sticking to what I know, which is up to "Now You See It, Now You Don't." That's a weird combination. Anyway, if you're still reading this, please don't flame me. I know characters are OOC, I know nobody really like this coupling (it's kind of like Daikari in its beginning stages - Daikari…the first Digimon couple I defended with all my heart…now it's well known!), I know plot continuity is messed up, and I know one of my best friends won't read this because she doesn't like the coupling. *sniffles* This whole USA ordeal is depressing. (People in NYC and the rest of the USA, I'm praying for you!) Oh, Infinity Blade, if you're reading this (why would you?), could you e-mail me at taki_wolf@hotmail.com please? I'd like your overall knowledge to help me in my next Digimon 03 story. (You know EVERYTHING…) Pretty please? Also, I don't know if Ruki's mother and grandmother have names, so I've given them first names, okay? Ruki's mother is Makino Aiko and her grandmother is Takaishi Hitomi (I thought her grandmother looked a bit like Takeru and Yamato's mother, Mrs. Takaishi…). *shrugs* Since I AM a dubbie, any lines paraphrased in this will be from the dub. Obviously.  
  
Disclaimer: Digimon [all season, 01-03] are © to Toei, Bandai, FOX, and whoever else has claim to owning any characters/ideas/et cetera in the series. This fanfic [::barbed wire::] is © myself, PallaPlease, also referred to on-line as Purple Mongoose/PallaPlease or Takichan.  
  
*  
She's blood, flesh and bone,  
No tucks or silicone.  
She's touch, smell, sight, taste, and sound…  
First class and fancy free  
She's high society.  
She's got the best of everything…  
  
~She's So High, Tal Bachman  
  
*  
  
There were few things in the world that could ever bring any emotion at all to Makino Ruki's impassive, stone face. One was her mother, a senseless, flighty fashion model who was a great source of anger and unhappiness in the life of her daughter, and the only emotion she ever managed to receive from Ruki tended to be either contempt or disgust. And sometimes, it was both.   
  
She'd tried to befriend her daughter so many times before that now it was done out of pure habit and an almost dying aspiration. They were strangers living in the same house, dwelling under one roof, but going on their separate ways. It was like petting a cactus at times and she would never know how on Earth her own mother, Ruki's grandmother, had managed to get the girl to talk without a look of special superiority.   
  
Aiko stirred her tea, face soft and defenseless, shaped like a cherubic angel's. She wondered, briefly, if Ruki had any friends. Immediately, she banished the thought. Why should she wonder about her daughter's social life? Ruki was a bright girl, and talented, too. She was sure she had friends. Smiling happily, obliviously, to herself, the slender woman sipped at the tea, eyes closing in her expression.  
  
She was sure of it.  
  
*  
  
Ruki didn't even bother to look back at the fancy, Victorian style girls' school she attended, face shadowed on one side due to the sun setting on the other. Digivice tucked into her schoolbag, which hung from her shoulder and thumped loudly against her thigh at every step, she continued to move forward briskly, eyes set straight ahead, never wavering or glancing to the side. Behind her, a group of high school aged girls from her school were laughing and talking loudly, playfully bantering over which American actor was the best - Tom Hanks or Denzel Washington - or giggling over a new shade of lipstick one of the girls was wearing. Scowling darkly, she picked up her pace, power-walking as far away from the girls as she could get. If that was how friends acted, then she was even more grateful for her 'lone-wolf' reputation. Half of the girls made fun of the others, scratching things on the sturdy plastic walls of the stalls in the bathrooms, gossiping and spreading new falsehoods around about each other. How absolutely ridiculous. Who needed friends like -that-?  
  
Steady clicking sounds marked where her feet descended on the dull, insignificant pavement and the rhythm was unbroken, unrelenting, uncaring. Just like her. A cold smile bubbled up to her lips without need, bringing an invisible change of atmosphere about her, one that brought a drowning wave of chills to all those who brushed past her on the sidewalk, whether or not they saw the cruel curving of her lips. She was radiating with carefully leashed power, malignant and oozing like an open cancerous sore. And she didn't care if she frightened others, didn't care if people so much older than she backed away from her unconsciously, chilled by some primordial sort of fear. None of it mattered. None of them mattered. Friends, enemies, allies…all just obstacles in the way. Obstacles that needed to be removed or, in the case of annoyances such as Matsuda Takato, ignored to the best of her capabilities.   
  
"Why do you keep following me around? Are you in -love- with me or something?" she teased in a mocking tone, hands on her hips, lips straight and emotionless as always.  
  
"No!" replied Takato in a quick, jittery voice, looking almost as if he wanted to bolt.   
  
Gritting her teeth, Ruki shook herself into the present, lips drawing back imperceptibly in a show of anger aimed at her own self. Why, no matter how she tried not to, did she have to think of that annoying pest of a human being? He was foul in his weakness, disgusting in his naivety, nauseating in his overwhelming sweetness. How could he even dare to say -to- -her- -face- that fighting was pointless? How -dare- he! Fingers coiled up, biting into her palm as they took on the spherical form of fists, wrists quivering in tensed, restrained rage. Rage at what? His impudence, his innocence, his unassuming acceptance? All of it! She did not want nor need his friendship.   
  
Eyesight dimmed and blurred enough to run colors and shapes together. Her fists relaxed, startled, as she lifted a hand to her eyes, brushing at the moistness threatening to overspill the dam of her long ebony eyelashes. Weakness. Tears are a weakness, she thought angrily, covering her eyes with her hands, shoulders rolled forward so that her arms, bent up at the elbows, covered her chest, back hunching over to prop up her elbows on her hips. Glittering silver droplets still came forward, caressing the lengths of her fingers and dripping in aching loneliness to the hardened cement she stood on from her smoothly curved fingertips. And with the tears came an inconsolable urge to run and she unfolded herself, legs thrusting into motion as she ran, flew, over the sidewalk, not caring as others moved out of her way, not listening as one or two anxious businessmen swore at her as she scuffed their polished black shoes in her dash.  
  
Running stemmed a resurgence of her self-control and the tears slowly ceased, and all she truly knew for a moment was the feeling of wings on her feet. That was enough to restore her arrogant confidence, enough to grow back into her emotionless state. Slowing to a walk as she neared her house, she straightened her back, leveled out her shoulders, and held her arms rigidly by her side, face hidden behind her mask of unfeeling stone.  
  
She was not weak.  
  
*  
  
Thick coils of barbed wire had been added to the dulled silver fencing that closed off the school soccer field. Once again, chalk had mysteriously been used up in the formation of the graffiti artist's bizarre creations that crisscrossed and scarred the hard-packed field of dirt. Takato reached up to gently touch one of the razor edges, pricking his finger on the shining metal. With a soft cry of pain, he pulled his hand back, darting the fingertip into his mouth and sucking quietly on the cut appendage, taking it out only to monitor the damage briefly. A tiny hole had been pierced through the layers of skin and a drop or two of garnet blood tipped it. How odd, he thought suddenly, licking off the blood and wrapping his finger in the hem of his t-shirt. How odd that a cut so tiny could hurt so much.  
  
Somewhere near the curving horizon, the sun was drifting out of sight, leaving only a sliver of its golden radiance to decorate the darkening sky. Soon the sun would be completely out of sight and then he would have to be home, where his mother and father would be waiting with dinner. A happy smile decorated his lips and his peaceful feeling managed to drown out the prickling pain lancing up through his hand. His mother was a queen of baking and he felt, without a doubt, that whatever pastries she had concocted during the evening for their dessert would be mouth-wateringly delicious.  
  
Releasing his uninjured hand from its grip on the fence, he lifted his finger, seeing the droplets of blood beginning to congeal into one another. In a moment or two, they would become a sticky bubble, which would later harden into a small scab. Glancing down at his hooded shirt, he made out a small streak of dulled maroon, indicating where blood had been soaked into the fabric. Not good. "'Kaasan isn't gonna be happy," he muttered, deciding it wouldn't be worth it if he tried to prevent the inevitable. There was a lesson to be learned from the barbed wire on the fence. No matter what the school officials attempted to do, Culamon would - somehow, someway - find a way into the soccer field and then the padlocked storage lean-to. Takato was growing suspicious of Gillmon's nocturnal activities; he could swear that his not-so-incredibly-bright Digimon had something to do with various designs and/or holes in the field.  
  
With a dismissing sort of shrug, he took off into a light jog in the direction of his family's small, but prosperous, bakery, sneakers slapping the pavement with faint sounds. Movement was an art, perfect and creased by thought and stretching muscles, pervaded by pure, blazing emotion. Tossing whatever inhibition he might have still clung to, he swooped his arms out to his sides, holding them up level with his shoulders, twirling once and laughing, unknowingly reopening his minor scrape. It was bizarre, as he danced in the wave of blitheness, that each spiraling step he took was decorated with beads of garnet gems, each droplet splashing against the sidewalk every few paces. Humming cheerfully to himself, he slowed and, still laughing though he was disoriented, stumbled back into a clump of bushes lining the park's pathways. Giggling, he sat up and shook his head, lifting his face straight into Ruki's, noses touching. "Aia!" he yelped, startled, sliding back a few inches, using his hands and feet to push back. "Don't do that, Ruki-chan!"  
  
She gave him an unreadable look and folded her arms over her chest, as if waiting for something. "Why do you keep trying to be my friend?" she blurted, though, Ruki being Ruki, it didn't sound like she was blurting. If anything, it sounded rather like a rehearsed speech opening.  
  
"N…nani?" He blinked, face an adorable mixture of confusion and partial understanding. "What do you mean?"  
  
A growl rose up in her throat and she dropped to her hands and knees, leaning her face in perilously close to his. He swallowed, nervously. "How can you be so naïve?" she snapped. "You're disgusting! You…you…you're too damn nice!" She smirked as he opened his mouth, closing it after a moment's reflection. "And I don't understand." Ruki leaned closer, lifting an alabaster hand and touching his forehead, almost gingerly. He stiffened at her touch and tried not to look into her eyes: her pale amethyst eyes that revealed everything in her soul that her face did not, the eyes that could read anybody's secrets in half of a heartbeat. "I don't understand," she continued, voice softening and growing a bit gentler, "how you can make me so weak." Her fingers traced down his cheek. "How can you make me weak?" With blurring speed, she whipped her hand away from his face and brought it back, slapping him viciously across his cheek.   
  
His own hand snapped up in response, shooting up to the rapidly swelling red handprint embedded on his cheek. Before it could touch the tenderized flesh, though, her other hand streaked out, catching his wrist in a tight grip. "You're bleeding." Her tone of voice was matter-of-fact, straight and to the point. "Why?" She touched the bloody fingertip with her thumb, blotting the blood with a curiosity tinting her face barely.  
  
"I felt the barbed wire on the school fences," answered Takato, studying her face, the frown on her pale lips.   
  
"And why did you do that?" she questioned.  
  
He shrugged. "Human fascination, I guess." He paused. "Wanted to see how sharp it was."  
  
She dropped his hand, grasping the sleeves of his hooded blue shirt, hauling him up to his feet, his eyes surprised. "You are such a fool," murmured Ruki, hands finding their way to her hips defiantly. "I'm barbed wire, as well," she finally spoke again. "Never speak to me or you'll be hurt."  
  
To her confusion, he smiled sweetly, tapping her nose with his thumb. "You're barbed wire, maybe," he acknowledged, "but your soul isn't." He leaned forward, kissing her awkwardly, quickly. "Come eat dinner with me and my parents."  
  
Before she could mouth any protests, he was already running, holding her wrist.  
  
"Takato!" she shrieked.  
  
He laughed in reply, ducking her playful sort of punch.  
  
*  
  
End AN: WAFF. Yay! (I think I'll rewrite this.) 


End file.
